A standard setting organization 3GPP (The 3rd Generation Partnership Project) is now going ahead with standardization of LTE-Advanced (Long Term Evolution Advanced: LTE-A) as a next generation communication standard that is compatible with an LTE (Long Term Evolution) standard. According to the LTE-A standard, a wireless communication device (hereinafter also called an “NE (Network Entity)”) of a network (Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network: E-UTRAN) provides one communication cell or more. The wireless communication device is a device that serves as an access point for a wireless communication terminal (User Equipment: UE), like a wireless communication base station (E-UTRAN NodeB: ENB), an outlying base station (Remote Radio Head: RRH), and a relay (Relay Node (NR) or a repeater). The wireless communication terminal belongs to one of communication cells provided by the wireless communication device. The wireless communication terminal is hereunder called simply a “terminal.”
In connection with the LTE-A standard, introduction of a CoMP (Coordinated Multiple-Point transmission/reception) technique; namely, a plurality of wireless communication devices performing coordinated multiple-point communication for one terminal to thereby transmit a wireless signal to the terminal, is under consideration. Enhancement of a signal reception characteristic of a terminal can be expected, with the utilization of the CoMP technique.
FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of a JT (Joint Transmission) standard that is one of the CoMP techniques. As described in connection with Non-Patent Document 1, according to the JT standard, a terminal is connected to one wireless communication device and receives a signal transmitted from the wireless communication device in a downlink control channel (Physical Downlink Control Channel: PDCCH) domain. The terminal receives from a plurality of wireless communication devices a signal transmitted in a downlink shared channel (Physical Downlink Shared Channel: PDSCH) domain. Therefore, the plurality of wireless communication devices transmit identical data to the same resource block (Resource Block: RB) such that the data become in phase with each other. Accordingly, the terminal can combine radio waves transmitted from the plurality of wireless communication devices together, thereby enhancing receiving power.
FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of a DCS (Dynamic Cell Selection) standard that is one of the CoMP techniques. Even in the DCS standard, a terminal is connected to one wireless communication device and receives a signal transmitted in the PDCCH domain from the wireless communication device. The terminal receives the signal transmitted in the PDSCH domain from one of the plurality of wireless communication devices that coordinate with each other. As above, the wireless communication device in a superior receiving environment is selectively used from among the plurality of wireless communication devices, whereby the terminal can receive a signal in a much better receiving environment. Further, when one wireless communication device transmits data to the resource block (RB), another wireless communication device that coordinates with the wireless communication device perform muting (suspend transmission of radio waves) with respect to the RB, thereby reducing interference power. Incidentally, the invention is not restricted to the JT standard or the DOS standard.